CLIPP Board

Optimizing Classroom Audio for Streaming Online

There is another free webinare this week from Mediasite about ways to record better sound in classroom situations. As we are going through lecture capture pilots at the moment and there are a number of lecturers out there that record the audio of their lectures I thought this may be quite a helpful one. Details below:

“Can you repeat the question?”: Optimizing Classroom Audio for Streaming On-line Instruction.

Tuesday, December 8th | 11:00 – 11:45 a.m. CST.

***Please note that this event takes place 7:00 – 7:45pm UK time.***

For more information and to register head over to the seminar page at Sonicfoundry.com

Mapping Mediasite Catalogs: Pro Tips for Organizing and Publishing Multimedia Presentations

This webinar is probably of more interest to admins than users. Unless of course you are a user who is really unhappy with the way your admin arranges your media site catalogues. Details below:

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
1:00 – 1:45 p.m. Central

As a Mediasite user, you know part of the beauty of the platform is the automatic publishing to a Mediasite Catalog. But even with that automation, you still have a ton of options – and decisions to make – about how you configure your server folders and online Catalogs.

Sonic Foundry’s John Pollard, Mediasite Product Manager, and Shane Tracy, Director of Event Services and Training, return to the mic to help you make the most of the vast flexibility that Mediasite offers in terms of publishing. If you’ve ever wondered how other users organize their content, and why, this is a presentation you won’t want to miss.

During the session, they will discuss:

• The difference between Mediasite server folders, Mediasite Catalogs and Linked Catalogs
• Suggestions for organizing your server folders with real-life examples
• Publishing strategies using Mediasite Catalogs
• Setting up Mediasite Catalogs and linked Mediasite Catalogs, including sorting and shortcuts
• “Before you start” tips that may save you time (and potential heartache)

Register online at http://www.sonicfoundry.com/webinar/

Mediasite, How to get full player functionality under Fire Fox

Since we updated our Mediasite recorder to version 5 we have had some confusion over its output and what format of presentation is served to our users. We noticed that users on Internet Explorer would be served a Windows Media Player version while those using Fire Fox would be served a Silver Light version. In essence this really shouldn’t have made any difference and if anything you would have thought this would be a good thing as Windows Media Player under Fire Fox tended to be a bit clunky and lack functionality as the Active X controls are not there.

However the reason it was flagged is that the Silver Light version of the player does not have any speed controls for playing back the presentation. This is a lack of functionality with Silver Light as opposed to the Mediasite product. The Windows Media version has a fast/slow option which students seem to really like. Those with English as a first language can “scan” the presentation and so get through more material where as those who may not speak such fluent English can watch the presentation slower and get more from it.

The confusion arose because while trying to test out what version was served to what browser we were not getting consistent results on different computers using the same browser. I was still being served the Windows Media version using Fire Fox although Adam was being served the Silver Light version. This confused us for a good while as from the machines we tested it was only mine that was ever served the Silver Light version.

After recently getting a new computer we noticed again that mine seemed to be the only computer in existence that still continued to receive the Windows Media version. At this stage we decided to try to work this out again and this time I can confidently report that we have an answer!

When your browser loads a presentation, it does a check. On IE it uses your standard install of Windows Media but on Fire Fox the presentation first looks for the Fire Fox Windows Media plug-in, which is a different plug-in that needs to be installed separately. If this plug-in does not exists on the system then it rolls over to using Silver Light. If Silver Light is not installed then it prompts you to install install it. While I think its great that there is a roll over, I find it strange that it would roll over to a plug-in that is just as unlikely to be on the system. If you need to make your user install something why not just prompt them for the Windows Media plug-in for Fire Fox and allow users the full functionality?

In short to experience the full functionality of a Mediasite Presentation download and install the Fire Fox Windows Media plug-in.